A person in Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Bedford, Hurst, Euless, Boyd, or any other place in Texas may wonder about the validity of any release they are presented with. Sometimes they are valid and binding and sometimes they are not.
Some guidance about the validity of release can be found in the case styled, Ranger Insurance Company v. John Ward, et al. This is a 2003, case decided by the Texarkana Court of Appeals.
Here are some facts:
Insureds in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Richardson, Garland, Mesquite, Carrollton, Irving, Mansfield, Weatherford, Aledo, Azle, and all other cities in Texas may want to be aware of one of the ways an insurance company will try to keep from paying on a claim.
There are many things an insurance company might do and regardless of which one of the many things they may try, the best advice for someone to take is: Consult with an experienced Insurance Law Attorney if it ever happens to you.
One of the things an insurance company might do is file a declaratory judgment action, also called a “dec action”, to have a court declare as a matter of law that there is no coverage on the policy that is at issue.
Here is info for someone in Arlington, Grand Prairie, Dallas, Fort Worth, Mansfield, Garland, Mesquite, Richardson, and other places in Texas to think about.
Normally, an injured party cannot sue the other guy’s insurance company. Any lawsuit is brought against the person who caused the injury or damages and then that person turns the claim over to their own insurance company to defend or pay the claim to the injured party.
Here is a case for thought on this subject. Ben P. Perez and Minerva B. Perez v. Catlin Specialty Insurance Company f/k/a Wellington Specialty Insurance Company. This is a United States District Court for the Western District of Texas case. The opinion was issued on December 20, 2010.
Lots of people in Arlington, Grand Prairie, Fort Worth, Dallas, Mesquite, Garland, Richardson, Burleson, Benbrook, Crowley, and other places in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area have purchased insurance policies that provide payment to them in the event they become disabled and are unable to work. A natural question would be: What happens if the insurance company denies a claim for disability benefits because of total disability and the case goes to trial?
This is what happened in the case styled, Occidental Life Insurance Company of California v. Robert L. Duncan. This case was decided by the San Antonio Court of Appeals in 1966.
The record in this case shows that Duncan was engaged in the selling of labels as an independent contractor for Louis Roesch Company on a commission basis. Louis Roesch Company manufactures labels and Duncan sells them, generally to canners. He has been in the label selling business for some twenty years. He was in an airplane accident on October 25, 1957, and was rather severly injured, Occidental Life Insurance Company of California, (Occidental) paid him for total disability from the time of the accident until September, 1963, when it stopped payment. Duncan sued.
People with life insurance policies in Fort Worth, Dallas, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Lake Worth, Benbrook, Burleson, and other places in Texas may wonder if the life insurance company can contest their life insurance after purchasing it. Here is some guidance on this issue.
The Texas Insurance Code addresses incontestibility clauses in atleast two separate places in the insurance code. The first one is in Sections 705.101 and 705.105. Of these five statutes, four deal generally with this issue, while 705.104 is more direct. It says:
“A defense based on a mispresentation in the application for, or in obtaining, a life insurance policy on the life of a person in or residing in this state is not valid or unenforceable in a suit brought on the policy on or after the second anniversary of the date of issuance of the policy if premiums due on the policy during the two years have been paid to and received by the insurer, unless:
Business persons in Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Mansfield, Burleson, Cleburne, Weatherford, Mesquite, Garland, Richardson, or any other location in Texas will usually have a commercial insurance policy covering their business. The policies they have are usually referred to as commercial general liability (CGL) policies. The following case looks at a problem one insured had with coverage and serves as an example of why a business person should try to understand what the coverages and exclusions are in any policy of insurance that money is spent on.
The Court of Appeals, Dallas, issued an opinion on November 22, 2010, styled, Frito-Lay, Inc. v. Trinity Universal Company, Trinity Universal Insurance Companies, Trinity Lloyd’s Insurance Company, and Unitrin Property and Casualty Insurance Group. In this case the court eventually ruled in favor of the various insurance companies and against Frito-Lay based on exclusions in the insurance policy.
Here is some background. Adampac, a food packaging company, obtained a CGL policy from Lloyd’s and a commercial excess policy from Universal. During the policy period, Frito-Lay hired Adampac to repackage a Frito-Lay food product to be used in consumer testing. During the repackaging process, the Frito Lay product became contaminated or adulterated with a foreign substance from another product Adampac was packaging for another customer. The foreign substance was a wintergreen flavoring used in a non-tobacco product similar to snuff. Because of the contamination, the Frito-Lay product could not be used for consumer testing.
Can I sue the insurance company? Someone in Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Mansfield, De Soto, Irving, Mesquite, Garland, Carolton, Farmersville, Weatherford, or anywhere else in Texas might ask that question. The answer is the same lawyer answer that a person gets on most legal questions: It depends.
When someone talks of sueing an insurance company that can usually mean one of two things. First, when a person wants to sue their own insurance company, that is something that can be done, assuming the insurance company has committed some wrong against you. This is called a “first party” claim.
When a person has a “third party” claim, then they cannot sue the insurance company. The most normal scenario for this is a car wreck. Usually someone causes a wreck with you, they give you their insurance information, you contact that insurance, that insurance company starts giving you the run around. The result of all this is that you want to sue the guys insurance company. You can’t. This is a third party claim and if you want to sue someone, then you have to sue the person who caused the wreck – not his insurance company. This is a “third party” claim.
What if someone in Mesquite, Garland, Keller, Flower Mound, Haslet, Newark, Benbrook, Hutchins, Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, or Rockwall is involved in an accident with a driver from Arkansas or some other state? Does that other state insurance have to pay a claim here in Texas if the driver is a family member and the other state’s policy allows an exclusion for family members? Let’s see what Texas says.
The best guidance for the above situation is found in a 1992, Austin Court of Appeals case. The style of the case is, National County Mutual Fire Insurance Company and Consumers County Mutual Insurance Company v. Randall Johnson.
The question in the case for the court to decide was: Does a family-member exclusion in an automobile insurance policy contravene the public policy set forth in the Texas Safety Responsibility Act, which requires liability insurance coverage for all damages that arise out of the operation of a motor vehicle?
Anybody with life insurance in Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Praire, Arlington, Weatherford, Garland, Mesquite, Mansfield, or anywhere else in Texas who has life insurance would have had to fill out an application for that insurance. So what happens if the life insurance company denies benefits under that policy and cites the reason as there being a misrepresentation in the application for the policy? Continue reading to get some guidance as to what might happen.
For a life insurance company to establish misrepresentation by the insured as legally sufficient grounds for denying benefits, the life insurance company must prove five elements in any lawsuit brought trying to get the benefits paid to the benficiary. Here are those five elements:
1) the making of a misrepresentation;
Does anybody in Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Arlington, Irving, Mesquite, Garland, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, De Soto, Lancaster, or anywhere in Texas have a pilot’s license? The answer is yes. So the next question is, “Are they covered in their life insurance policy if they die in an airplane crash?” The answer to that is, “It depends.”
All insurance policies are going to have “exclusions”. These exclusions will limit the responsibility of the life insurance company to pay death benefits when these exclusions may apply.
This issue came up in the case, American Home Assurance Company v. Loretta Anne Brandt. This is an older case which was decided in 1989 by the Texarkana Court of Appeals. The exclusion in this case excluded coverage by the following provision: “LIMITED AIR TRAVEL COVERAGE: Insurance provided under the policy includes riding as a passenger, but not as a pilot or crew member in, including boarding or alighting from, or being struck by, any aircraft.”
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